


Another Day of Being a Hero, Another Day of Accepting Alternative Earths.

by Petsohp



Series: Are You Afraid Of The 90's? [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comedy, Crossover, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-20 22:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16146563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petsohp/pseuds/Petsohp
Summary: A freak monster accident involving priceless greek treasures results in two destroyed museum wings and the heroes of the Second Giant War, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase and Piper Mclean disappearing into the smoke, seemingly vanished from the site itself.Toshinori Yagi is hunting down the more than 2,000 years old greek artifact called the first computer of the world- the Antikythera Mechanism, per request from his closest friend in the United States, David Shield.As it was, it's early 1991, and as Toshinori and David are due to graduate from college that May, Toshinori had already told David he was planning to go back to Japan almost immediately- and, well. That conversation had hurt quite a bit. Anyhow- that was how David had roped him into helping him and his family, and while it necessarly wasn't his area of expert, if he followed everything as he had been told, he said to himself, dealing with international art dealers shouldn't be so bad.And that was his mistake.





	1. Welcome To Magic Kingdom.

Toshinori Yagi first saw them at the general entrance of Magic Kingdom.

No one batted an eyelash at them, because they looked like regular, but still fairly attractive young adults hanging out in the, well, entrance of Magic Kingdom. Toshinori’s internal pro-hero senses, however, begged at him to take notice of the pair. So he did.

He tried to nonchalantly stand near them while eavesdropping their conversation, as the girl fixed her dark sunglasses and the boy drank from his almost empty water bottle.

“So uh, yeah. We’ll get it.” The boy said.

“Promise.” The girl agreed.

The girl and the boy both seemed to cock their head to a certain side. Weird.

A minute or so passed, at which point they both seemed to go back as acting as if they weren’t being suspicious.  

The boy motioned to drink more water, but then realized he had drank it all already. He sighed.

“Let’s go inside so that I can buy more water bottles.” He said. He looked over at the girl’s sunglasses. “I’ll buy one for you too.”

“That’ll be appreciated. Thanks.” The girl replied. They both shuffled over to the main gate, and entered the arguably most famous theme park of the world.

Toshinori followed them as inconspicuous as he could.

* * *

David had told him that a very historical important greek antique had gone missing from a museum, and while normally pro-heroes wouldn’t deal with that sort of stuff, the museum had been owned by David’s father’s family, so when David told him that his family had gotten a tip that the antique would be sold in one of the Disney parks of all places, he asked Toshinori if he could go check it out. The thought went that if he went undercover, the chances of him blowing it were far less by his ability to obnoxiously pull the tourist act, and if he did was uncovered, at least everyone involved knew he probably wouldn't die if things turned for the worst.

Toshinori had asked David which of the parks he should check out first, and he had replied Magic Kingdom. Apart from being the icon of the mouse parks, it was also the most aggressively kid-friendly advertised.

Toshinori had looked up from his Magic Kingdom map as he noticed the suspicious pair. He had no idea how maybe possible international art dealers could be this young, but nevertheless- they certainly acted the part.  

* * *

 “Huh, they changed the map since then. Or after. Whatever.” The boy said, extending a Magic Kingdom map.

The girl leaned over. She scanned the map, and then seemed to remember something. She reached over to the panda backpack the boy was carrying and pulled up another map- although from the point he was hiding, Toshinori could see that it wasn’t the one from Magic Kingdom.

“Why are we even here?” The girl said, extending the other map. “There’s a Odyssey part in Epcot, I think we should go there.”

The boy looked incredulous at the girl. “You still remember that? Oh wait it was before everything. Sorry.”

"Don’t really blame you for trying to forget the existence of yesterday, even before it all started to go downhill.” The girl replied.  

They both seemed to listen to something from the side of their heads- again. A comms device, most likely.

“So...what do you wanna do until twelve?” The boy asked after a while.

“Try not to die.” The girl used the map she was holding as a shelter from the low morning sun.

The boy scanned the map again.

“Alright so... all the hard rides are off the list and taking seats away from the kids would be bad. What do we do?” He asked.

The girl thought about it for a second, and then something seemed to click on her mind.

“Boat ride.” She declared. She pointed over to the small boats moving across the artificial river of the Magic Kingdom park- Rivers of America.  

“Boat ride it is.” The boy agreed, folding up the map he was holding. “Wait, where’s the entrance?”

“Um.” The girl eloquently said.

The boy sighed and opened up the map again. 

* * *

Toshinori followed the pair up to the Haunted House attraction, and then derived left with them. The dock was a small one- the wooden signs saying ‘Keel Boat Landing’ in red were only visible by a modest distance.

Due to the early morning hours and the boat ride not being one of the main attractions per say, Toshinori and the two people he was tracking kept line in relatively small one. They had seen the boat called the ‘Gullywhumper’ sailing while walking towards the Haunted House, which meant that its sister, the ‘Bertha Mae’ had reached the dock designed for them some ten minutes after the three of them had entered the ride’s line.

They boarded aboard the ‘Bertha Mae’s second floor, and while Toshinori had planned to sit either on the opposite aisle or two or three seats in space between the mysterious stranger, the crew member in charge of the boat’s second floor had seen the big family that was in front of Toshinori in line sit in the opposite aisle, so they had highly encouraged him to sit next to his targets.

“No empty seats!” the crew member had said, “We don’t want to keep people waiting in line! :).”

Toshinori could hear the constructed smile in many of the park member’s speech. It bothered him.

“I want a mickey mouse hat.” He heard the boy say. The boy looked over to his right to see the reaction of his companion, the girl Toshinori was sitting next to. Over to Toshinori’s left, the father of a family of four was busy dumping a big travel backpack and two folding strollers into the seat immediately next to his own. The same crew member that had asked Toshinori to move was biting their lips in annoyance, and afterwards decided to head down to count how many guests remained to be seated in the hopes that they wouldn’t need to tell the family to put their stuff on the floor.  

“I would buy a daisy duck hat.” The girl stated.

“No minnie mouse?”

“Eh.” The girl waved a hand in front of her. “I would need my own mickey mouse partner.”

“Oh.”

"Annabeth would find endearing the fact that you bought her a minnie mouse hat endearing thought.”

“Huh.” The boy’s face lightened up as he added something else to do in his checklist.

“Atta boy.”

“Alright folks!” The Captain announced from his radio, “To the people sitting on the left side on the boat, you might want to turn over to your left side as you should be able to see Tom Sawyer’s Island in the distance. Not to worry the other side of the boat, as in a couple of seconds we will begin our trip around the Rivers of America, and therefore be able to see the magnificat park of Magic Kingdom while being able to relax with the wind and the birds. If we’re lucky, we might even see our sister boat the ‘Gullywhumper’ coming back from its rounds, in which case, we should all be prepared to say hi. Make sure to keep your hands and feet on board at all times and double check your personal items before and after the boat ride. Aaaand with that said, we shall set sail.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damn. congratulations to the my hero academia movie due to kicking down 'the predator' and 'nun' movie!


	2. I Fight with Fireballs While Destroying a National Museum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and in the inmortal words of percy jackson, i'm home. 
> 
> heavy spoilers for 'the burning maze'.

Piper and I had gone to the museum Annabeth’s mentor curated as a way to surprise her. I wanted to go see Annabeth, as the exam I had on Monday had been moved to Wednesday, so instead of cramming during the weekend, I could spend two days with Annabeth and cram from Monday night to Tuesday night instead.

Piper had moved to New York after finishing high school due to Jason’s death, which up to this point, was a conversation starter neither of us had talked between ourselves. I just didn’t know what to say to her- we both had fought side by side in the second Giant War, but the complexity of her role before Jason’s death and the afterwards that followed it… we just didn’t had that sort of relationship. 

Anyways, so that was why I wasn’t really surprised when I bumped into Piper on my way to the museum.

“Percy?” she said, with a hint of amusement.

“Uh, yeah.” I said.

“You’re on your way to surprise visit Annabeth aren’t you?” She asked

“Yep.”

“Well, to be fair I don’t really trust the security guard to not kick you out as you awkwardly wait outside the guest designated area.”

“Hey!”

“So I’m just gonna drop you off there and put my word into the security entail. They recognize me already.” She said.

I thought about the implications of that. “So in theory if I make more surprise visits everything will be alright?” I asked.

“Most likely.” She replied.

“Alright, let’s go then.”

* * *

We reached the museum Annabeth had snagged an internship with (!), and was told by the security guard at the entrance that greeted Piper by her name that the meeting Annabeth and her mentor were in should be wrapping up by now. 

“See?” Piper said, “People have seen me around here.”

“I see that.” I replied.

We both then stood in the front steps of the museum for a couple of awkward seconds.  

“So, uh.” I started, wanting to break the awkward mood, “I heard the new Captain America movie is actually really really good.” I said.

“Really?” Piper said, “I mean, we were, er, sort of busy during the time the first movie was in theatres. Do you think I could understand it without seeing the first one?” She asked.

“Er, I think so? They told me that the only thing I should know is that his best friend, Bucky died in the first one.” I replied.

“Now that I think about it- what compelled us all to see the first Avengers movie anyways?” Piper asked.

Honestly? Good question. Nevertheless, Piper and I continued talking about the safe topic of superheroes movies.

We were going around the grounds of whatever the timeline (it's timelines now isn’t it? ugh.) of the x-men movies were, at which point the security guard walked nonchalantly towards us. 

The security guard had a worried look on his face, and Piper and I exchanged glances.

“I think you two should leave.” The security guard stated. He stared across the museum’s parking lot- two movers were carrying a big wooden crate towards the back entrance of the museum. Nothing suspicious on paper, but something about it had perked up the security guard’s internal senses, and as Piper and I looked at the scene, I could tell without even looking at her that we both had picked up on whatever the security guard had sensed.

Our demigods internal instincts had kicked in, but of course, the security guard didn’t know that.

Piper and I pretended to leave the museum’s parking lot- and when we were out of clear eyeshot from the entrance we both looked back to where the security guard had rapidly moved towards the movers while double checking he had his baton on hand.

We jogged over to where the museum’s security guard was asure trouble was awaiting.

* * *

 I mentally double checked the items I had brought with me on my backpack- Paul’s laptop with its charger, some changing clothes for myself, my wallet with my driver’s license, some drachmas and spare cash, a couple of granola bars and homemade blue cookies my mom had made and safed on a ziplock bag. Nothing I could really use if the intruders turned out to be regular old mortal robbers, although I supposed that in a hinch I could either bash Paul’s laptop on their heads or get really creative with the clothes.

I padded _Riptide_ on my pocket- just in case I needed to intimidate someone.

“I left _Katoptris_ at home.” Piper murmured. She placed one of her hands on one of her short’s pocket, “I only have like, ten bucks and my bus card on me.”

We reached the back entrance of the museum, and saw the security guard confronting the two mysterious movers.

“I didn’t get information about any of the art pieces coming in or out of the museum today.” The security guard said, “What is your business in being here carrying around that crate?”

“You must be mistaken.” One of the movers said. While both of the movers had hats on them, I realized that one of them in particular was subtently making sure that his own was covering his forehead at all times. 

Damn it. It looked like I was going to need to use _Riptide_ after all.

“Right.” The security guard said towards the blatant lie. “Let me radio check right here and right now.” The security guard activated his radio from his belt, and both of the movers flinched.

Next to the spot the ‘movers’ were standing, the wall exploded.

“Oh my gods!” Piper ran towards the security guard and shoved him back- just in case things kept escalating, which they were at this point.

I took _Riptide_ out from my pocket and uncapped him while running to stand in between Piper with the security and the ‘movers’.

A man somewhere between his mid twenties stepped out of the bomb wreckage, and looked down at the two ‘movers’ his explosion had caused to get them knocked down to the floor. 

“You’re late.” One of the ‘movers’ grumbled.

“Fashionably late.” The man corrected. “Come on, Harima wants us to get out of here as soon as possible. We have the _Antikythera mechanism_ located already, we just need to grab it and take it away.”

My eyes derived to the ‘mover’ who fidgeted a lot with his hat- and as I feared, I saw an extra mouth sprouting from his forehead.

Piper quickly covered the eyesight of the mortal security guard from the monster, and using her charmspeak, commanded him to go to sleep until an hour or two, that we had everything under control.

I could only hope so.

I saw the explosion man look at Piper with surprise.

“Hey!” I yelled at the man, “Seriously? All this trouble just to see an ancient greek treasure? Couldn’t you just have waited until it was open to visitors or something?”

The man took his eyes away from Piper and looked straight at my sword. “You don’t seem surprised.” He stated.

Uh. “What do you mean by that?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know the answer.

His jaw clenched. “Seems our first impressions of this world were wrong.”

What?

“Hey, you two!” He barked to his accomplices, “Get inside!”

I moved to run towards them, but the other monster (?) who didn’t had a mouth on his forehead stretched his hand out, and with a _splash!_ the floor in-between us and them was covered in gooey, black sludge.

I groaned as Piper got to her feet and saw the black sludge obstructing the entrance.

“Ugh.” Piper said. “Come on, Annabeth mentioned during a hang-out that the object they’re looking for is in the museum’s research labs.”

“Oh, thank the gods.” I said, relieved. At least we knew where to run.

* * *

 Piper and I ran to the general entrance, and then stopped to see a map of the museum because frankly, neither of us knew where the research labs where located.

“Percy?” A familiar voice said from behind us.

“Annabeth, hey!” I grinned.

Annabeth ran towards me, and then we hugged a big one in which I could feel Annabeth’s shock mixed with happiness against my chest.

Piper cleared her throat. “Ahem. So. Sorry to interrupt,” she said, stepping in between us, “But uh we’re officially dragging you into something else. Sorry.”

Annabeth and I parted away, and she fixed her messenger bag on her shoulder. She looked at _Riptide_. “What sort of...stuff?”

“Monster stuff.” I said.“They’re planning to steal the uh..”

“ _Antikythera mechanism.”_ Piper chipped in.

Annabeth swore. “Follow me.” She said to us, her heels moving towards what I assumed was the direction of the research labs.

We jogged to the research labs in what Annabeth described as a shortcut from the way the location was presented given to visitors by tour guides, while afterwards she gave us a run down of the _Antikythera mechanism._ It basically boiled down to “in short, it’s a really really important historical valuable item and to be honest, I’m not surprised they have chosen to steal that artifact in particular. I can only imagine how much its worth in the black market.” 

So. Overall, as long as a god or goddess did not decided to make an appearance afterwards, I would count it as a good day.

We reached the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts exhibit, and Annabeth directed us to the elevator that would bring us down to the research labs.

Unfortunately, said elevator exploded open. The explosion man from earlier stepped out and his two lackeys followed him with the crate they had been carrying around. 

“Hurry up.” Explosion man said to the other two.

“You carry this then.” Grumbled the two mouthed monster. It suddenly dawned on me that besides the extra mouth on its forehead, the rest of the monster’s body looked completely normal. 

“Piper,” Annabeth quickly murmured to her, “Run quickly out of the robbers current line of sight, Percy and I are going to distract the three of them. Grab the _Antikythera mechanism_ while we distract them and then run back the way we came from. Look for Dr. Richard Veblen.”

“Your mentor.” Piper said, recognizing the name. “Okay.” She quickly dashed away into a hiding place.

Explosion man’s eyes scanned the room, which then rolled in aggravation as they recognized me.

“Fine.” He said with disdain. “Let’s do this the hard way.” He pulled his right hand out of his jacket, and a fireball formed inside his palm. 

Hard way it is.

* * *

 Annabeth separated from me to lure away the monsters with the crate away from it, which left me to deal with the man formerly known as ‘Explosion man’, as I realized that ‘Fireball man’ would be a better fit for him instead.

Currently, he was hurling a bunch of tiny and medium sized fireballs towards me. I dodged them all, but I realized through the fifth tiny fireball that at some point he had adjusted his plans of having me meet my fate by an army of fireballs into counting on me to dodge them- I couldn’t get near him due to his fireballs, but he couldn’t hit me either, so he had changed gears into aiming at the sculptures and arts artifacts in the exhibit, as that to take punishment for the destruction of the items, he would need to actually be captured.

Which meant that he knew that in between his arrest and the _Antikythera mechanism_ being intact, I would choose the _Antikythera mechanism_.

Great.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Annabeth successfully luring the rest of the robbers into the exhibit next door, so I took it as my cue to bring in the distraction method of talking in-battle.

“So!” I said, as I dodged a medium sized fireball and saw a century old European sculpture crash to the ground, “What do you even want with the _Antikythera mechanism_ anyway?”

Fireball man raised his eyebrow at me. “It’s highly valuable.”

“I mean. It’s not the only highly valuable item in this museum.” I said.

Fireball man stared at me for a moment. “It’s more valuable than anything you could ever think of.”

I gripped _Riptide_ in my hands. I had no idea what he meant by that, and not knowing what the _Antikythera mechanism_ could apparently do was beginning to worry me.

Luckily, I saw Piper from behind Fireball man’s back cradling the _Antikythera mechanism_ on her hands and moving the top of the crate back as she found it. I moved towards the exhibit Annabeth and her targets had ran into, so that I could give Piper a clearer opportunity to run via the exit Annabeth had instructed her to take.

“Anyways,” Fireball man continued, “You and that girl missed your opportunity to take it away from us anyhow.”

Uh-uh.

The realization dawned on Fireball man almost immediately. “Wait-” He started to say, as I took the opportunity to jump over the trashed sculptures and burned paintings to pin him down.

I managed to knock him into the floor, but Fireball man’s instincts were good- on the one point five second or so he spend crashing into the floor, he produced a fireball and then hurled it over to the big sculpture next to the exit Piper was meant to take. The sculpture crashed down the door and blocked anyone from entering the room we were in using that door in the near future.    

Piper, for her part, didn’t lose a beat and derived quickly to the exhibit Annabeth was fighting in.

I suddenly smelt the smell of something burning, and looked down to where I had pinned Fireball man- he had his fireball producing hand in my general chest area and was busy harnessing a fireball that would do a whole lot more than simply blast me away.

I jumped away from him as I saw the beginnings of my shirt burning away, and Fireball man’s said big fireball shot directly above him.

I croaked as I suddenly saw the blue of the skies outside the building. “Dude.” I said incredulously at Fireball man. I pointed to the hole in the ceiling, “Not cool!”

He snorted.

Annabeth and Piper appeared from the exhibit they’ve both disappeared to. “Percy, we have the- er, what happened to your shirt?” Annabeth asked.

I used one of my hands to point to Fireball man, and the other one to point to the burning hole in the ceiling. “I think you can put two and two together.” I said, annoyed. 

Fireball man stood up from the floor. “I knew those two were useless.” He said, “But nevertheless, what’s done is done. I’ll just deal with this by myself.” He hurled a fireball towards Piper.

Piper dodged and ran back again into the exhibit she just exited from, and Annabeth and I both moved to block Fireball man’s path from her.

He dodged Annabeth’s attack by jumping backwards while throwing a fireball in my direction, and he moved to follow Piper. Annabeth ran towards him and then jumped on his back, but Fireball man moved his hand high on top of her head and send out a small fireball before she could knock down his arm, forcing her to jump to the side and roll over.

I followed Fireball man meanwhile Annabeth got to her feet.  

I entered the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas wing and first saw the two monsters movers in the corner scrapped and sound asleep. I then moved my eyes to the ground, and to my horror, saw a path of black gooey oil that seemed to start from the roof. I realized that you technically had to go around the side borders of the room to get to the other side, as the direct path was obstructed by said black oil, courtesy of the sludge monster that had used the big intricate African textile rug hanging across the ceiling as a starting nest for the gooey liquid.

Piper was busy running to the farthest exit, as the nearest door out had been blocked by a well aimed fireball that had knocked down an Oceania totem, obstructing the door. I hurried over to knock out Fireball man’s attempt at producing another one of his fireballs and block the other exit.

I grabbed his right arm and twisted it down, and the fireball he was aiming to the right side of the room exploded on the ground between his feet and mine.

I heard Annabeth running into the room.

“Annabeth!” I yelled at her while I used my right leg to kick down Fireball man on his right side and my arm to pin his fireball producing hand down, “I have spare clothes in my backpack!”

She quickly understood what I was trying to say, and as I pinned down Fireball man again, but this time making sure to keep his right hand away from immediate harm, Annabeth opened my backpack on my back, took out the spare clothes I had in it, and hurried over to where I had Fireball man’s right hand pinned down. She harshly grabbed his arm and covered his hand with the clothes, suffocating the flames he was trying to produce.

“I’m going to go look for Piper.” Annabeth said. She looked down at the hand she was holding down. “Press down on top of his hand.” Annabeth ordered to me, “It seems he can’t produce his flame balls if his hand is being pressed down as if the bones are about to break.”

Fireball man growled at us, and while he tried aim a kick to my groin, I had already begun to go up to where Annabeth had his hand down and he hit my upper leg instead.

I stumbled over to where I had to press Fireball man’s hand down- while I thanked the lucky stars he hadn’t hit my groin, the boots he wore were _heavy_.

Annabeth stood up, and I realized that her messenger bag was missing.

Right on cue, Piper ran into the room with said messenger bag. She ran towards us, and then stopped to catch her breath. “So first of all...running around carrying all of that stuff is a heavy workout. And second of all..”

A loud crash from the other room was heard, followed by laughter that reminded me unconformably of The Joker from the original Batman movies.

Piper exhaled. “I’m being chased.”

Of course she was. Because that was just the demigod life.

A fast knife traveled across the room towards where I had Fireball man’s hand pressed down, which made me jump backwards. And like magic, it managed to cut through the bundle of clothes holding his hand without harming him.

Fireball man quickly jumped to his feet and immediately threw a small fireball towards Piper’s feet, and as she jumped away from the fire, another knife, but this one bigger than the one from before and being thrown from a far closer distance, cut through the messenger bag’s shoulder strap. 

As Piper yelped and then dropped to the floor to catch the bag itself, I sprinted towards the knife throwing source, as the person in question had thrown the latest knife from the doorway, while Annabeth positioned herself to block Fireball man from Piper.

Knife thrower walked slowly towards me via the side borner of the room, as he had two small knives on his hands, and I assumed he was getting ready to look for the perfect moment to cut me open or something. 

We each took a stand in the middle of the pathway, trying to decide who was going to be the first one to attack whom.

I decided to be the first one to talk.

“I suppose you’re the leader of this break-in?” I said. “Harima, I believe Fireball man called you.”

Knife thrower scoffed. “Well. You’re not wrong in that assessment.” He, like Fireball man had before, looked at _Riptide_ with certain fascination. “But I believe that you have no idea what the device your friend has on her hands has the power to do. And if the theory I have right now is correct, then this isn’t over just yet.”

“Alvarez!” He barked to Fireball man, “Window!”

Alvarez stopped his momentum of sending out the current fireball he was producing, and instead rapidly backed away from Piper and Annabeth so that he could freely make a bigger fireball. The fireball he had on his hand was the biggest one I’ve seen him produce just yet- it covered his entire hand. After the fireball was about a bit bigger than the size of his hand, he threw it towards the windows.

The windows bursted right open, and Alvarez quickly jumped outside before the fire could spread, Harima hot on his heels. I tried to follow them on my intent to pursue them, but Harima threw a knife at me and then the other one he had on his hands- and the two seconds combined of me dodging the knife attacks were enough for the windows to catch on fire and obstruct a safe jump.

I ran back to check on Piper and Annabeth, annoyed that Harima and Alvarez had gotten away.

Annabeth stood up from the floor and cleaned the dust bunnies on her clothes. “We need to look for Dr. Veblen. He would vouch for us.” She said.

Of course. Because as I looked around at the room, the amount of not only clean-up costs but also damage repairs was probably in the thousands, and I wasn’t even counting the exhibit with the exploded elevator.

I groaned. That was just what I needed- to be banned from just not another museum, but from the museum my girlfriend worked at. 

I clicked _Riptide_ down to its pen form, and Annacked checked on the messenger bag holding the _Antikythera mechanism_.

“Well.” She said. She took the biggest part of the artifact out of the bag. “It looks mostly intact as far as I can see.”

“No need to thank me.” Piper chirped. “Just ran across half the museum being chased by a man that thought of himself as the knife wielder version of The Joker.”

I looked down at the burned hole in my shirt. It looked like I had a pretty wild time with alcoholic drinks last night, and that I didn’t bothered to change t-shirts in the morning.

I looked at the corner of the room where the two monster lackeys were sound asleep. “Hey.” I said to Piper, “For how long did you make them go to sleep?”

Piper frowned. “Did they seriously just forget them here or something?”

I looked at Annabeth, I could see the gears on her head working overtime. “Unimaginable power.” She murmured. She looked at us. “Harima and Alvarez didn’t quite seem like demigods did they?” She stated.

“Maybe they’re magicians.” I said. Although, I knew that I was bluffing with that. Harima and Alvarez, nor the two monsters (were they even monsters?) acted like Carter, and from what Annabeth had told me about Sadie, they were no Sadie with her magic either.

“They were no Norse patron descendants too.” Annabeth said. “Maybe they're from another mythological patreon?”

“Er, Alvarez specifically emphasized ‘this world’ when we first meet him.” Piper said, gesturing to herself and me.

Annabeth turned over the wheel piece she was holding, and all of the sudden, she tensed.

“It moved.” She stated, staring at the wheel.

“Er, yeah. It’s a wheel.” I said.

“No.” Annabeth stressed. “The _Antikythera mechanism_ can not move from what we have- experts believe that this main gear wheel was moved by a hand-turned shaft, which has never been found.”

“Wait a minute.” Piper said. She had the messenger bag with the rest of the pieces on her arms. “Maybe it moved with all the racket of me running around while dodging knives.”

Annabeth bit her lower lip.

I extended my hand to touch the clock wheel of the _Antikythera mechanism_ , and for some reason, a really weird green smoke started to sprout from the clock wheel, and as I looked to Piper, the same green smoke was coming from inside the messenger bag.

“Uh-uh.” Piper said. I followed her line of sight, and realized with horror that she wasn’t referencing to the green smoke that was rapidly expanding and surrounding the three of us- she was referring to the really, really big fireball that was crossing the skies, and moving towards our direction.

Of course.

Before either of us could move, however, the green smoke finalized its mission to completely cover each of us from head to toe.

 

And that was the last thing I remember before everything turned black.


	3. We Become Comic Book Characters, Probably.

I grudgingly woke up, feeling like if my entire self had just come out from being shoved to sit through an unregulated fast-paced roller coaster. I numbly looked around, and barely registered Annabeth and Piper collecting themselves like they had gotten out of the same experience too.

After I had regained a bit of my senses, I saw that while we were waking up from being thrown and knocked out in the sidewalk, very few people barely seemed to register the three young adults passed out in the street, and even if they did made some effort in acknowledging us, that meant that they just simply murmured something under their breath while sidestepping us.

I stretched my arms, feeling a bit upbeat in this case. At least we were still in New York.

I stood up, and a song I recognized as an Aerosmith one was coming out of the convenience store one way down.

“Let’s go to the convenience store.” I told Annabeth and Piper.

Annabeth putted her _Antikythera mechanism_ piece inside the messenger bag Piper had on her hands, and then grabbed the bag itself from her. Piper immediately let out a sign of relief.  

Piper then looked at Annabeth, and she shrugged. “A debrief meeting sitting down would be nice.” She said.

We walked to the convenience store.

* * *

Annabeth followed Piper as she went to the side back of the store to buy a Coca-Cola can, and I stayed in front of the shop where the cashier was to buy myself a hot-dog.

“What would you like your hot-dog with?” The cashier asked me.

My stomach grumbled. “Everything available.” I said.

As I waited for my hot-dog, I slotted my backpack in front of me to look for the spare cash I had, and to tentatively revise Paul’s laptop. To my dismay, I saw the protective cover ruined beyond repair. I decided to ignore the possible implications of that for now as I took out the cash to pay for my hot-dog.

“That would be $3.45, sir.” The cashier said. I looked up and saw my hot-dog sitting in the corner of the counter with its mayonnaise, ketchup and chili, and three napkins folded neatly below it.

Huh. That was fast.

I made space for Piper as she came forward to pay for her soda.

* * *

Annabeth, Piper and I sat in the back corner table of the store, as the Aerosmith song I now recognized as ‘Rag Doll’ entered its last minute of play time.

“Is this still the same song that was playing as we entered?” Piper asked.

“Yep.” I said. As much as I was a Led Zepplin and Guns N’ Roses guy, I didn’t know much about the sorta glam metal bands like Aerosmith beyond what Paul had in his Spotify high school playlist. Nerveless to say, the fact that I recognized this song in particular made me realize how much I’ve snubbed off from him.

Annabeth took out a water bottle from her ruined messenger bag. “So,” She started. “That happened.” She looked at her watch. “Wow. It’s only…11 am.”

“What?” I said.

“It seems the transportation from the museum was instantaneous.” She said.

I bitterly ate my hot-dog. Because of course I had to destroy a national museum before lunch time.

“My meeting started at 8.” She said.

“And I bumped into Percy at like, eight thirty, I believe.” Piper said.

“So like. We spend half an hour getting to the museum itself, talked for twenty minutes or so and then spend the rest of our time pursuing art robbers?”

“My meeting did end at ten.” Annabeth said. 

Aerosmith’s ‘Rag Doll’ ending tunes enfolded in the background as the three of us sat and reflected about our morning.

“Wow, what a throwback!” The radio host said. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard that song!

Just a while? Something about that caught my thoughts- I looked up to the overheard speaker as if looking at it would help me realize what I thought the host said was true.

“Percy?  What’s wrong?” I heard Annabeth say in the background.

A second radio host continued the thoughts of the first one. “Yeah, it’s been like what? Three years since I last heard this song? Time sure goes fast, huh!”

Oh.

Uh-uh.

Um.

“Annabeth,” I said, “What year it is.”

Annabeth looked up, and her breath caught as she saw something outside the store.

“As a very good question that is...I think time travel itself is the least of our problems.”

* * *

 After certain revelations, we immediately cleaned up our table, went outside, and gathered around in a shady back-alley. Not only could we probably deal with just about anything that lurked in the shadows, we had to make sure we weren’t about to be overlooked as we freaked out over our current situation.

“Guys,” Piper said, “I’m pretty sure I saw someone with like, a real plant in their head, and it didn’t look fake or anything. It looked like it was just permanently stuck there for life.”

“Honestly? Same. I think I saw someone that just, poof! Made like, ice cubes appear from their hands.” 

Annabeth took a big breath. “Okay so. What I’m thinking right now might seem quite impossible, but I would like to remind everyone that our mere existence is largely thought to be impossible too.”

“Um, Annabeth?”

She clasped her hands together. “My dorm roommate is quite into um, comic books. So you know, I sometimes listen to what theories she has in whatever comic book run she’s reading at the moment.”

“Are you suggesting we’re in a comic book universe?” Piper asked.

Annabeth grimaced. “Not comic book universe, but like...alternative universe? Alternative Earth, maybe? I, my roommate has been rambling about alternative earths lately in preparation for the show as apparently The Flash mythology deals pretty heavy with that topic.” She shrugged.

I had a lot of questions to ask, but I decided to settle on the most important one for the moment.

“Well, is the alternative universe trying to kills us?” I said.

“I. Not that I know of.” Annabeth replied.

I let out a sign of relief. Look- I’m a demigod. Something trying _not_ to kill me is a pretty big deal.

“So,” Piper continued. “What do you suggest?”

“Our best lead right now is to follow what our dear old friends Harima and Alvarez were probably referring to.” Annabeth gestured her hands down in resignation. “It’s time to track down and steal an invaluable ancient world artifact.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have fun kids! youre gonna need it!


End file.
